How many women are actually aware of misogyny?

[FleecyMoo]

Am I alone in being repeatedly shocked by encounters with women who don't realise (or perhaps don't want to acknowledge?) that misogyny is a thing? I am a lurker on another predominately female forum and there's a current thread on there where some women appear to be saying that misogyny is just a 'fashionable word' these days but that the concept itself was all over and done with after the 1970's.

Personally, I think that misogynistic views aired in public i.e. online are more overt these days after a bit of a lull where it was somewhat quietened down in public.What makes some women able to see it but not others though?

I'm no academic or activist but I feel so frustrated that women are collaborating in their own oppression and would like suggestions on how I could illumine what's really happening so that mild-mannered, middle-class, middle-aged women like me could help raise awareness?

Thanks everyone for helping me understand the issue. I will keep on trying, in my low key way, to raise awareness amongst my social group.

As an aside, I was surprised to hear that at least one poster felt that I was angry with her. Did I say I was angry or come across as angry? I can't see how I did. It's true that I am upset that internalised misogyny exists but I'm definitely not angry towards any woman who exhibits it.

"If I pretend it doesn't exist it can't hurt me!"

That always works, right?

I too saw it full force post-kids. I’m sorry to have to conclude that men don’t see women as fully human. Even my DH doesn’t. If he did he wouldn’t need to be prompted to do/say/ask about certain things because it would be obvious that said woman (be it me, his mum or his sister) needs that thing doing.
I don’t think they can really relate to us or understand the things we experience. I feel that men are socialised to have less empathy or maybe it’s inherent? Anyway it’s better to know the truth.

To the Op, you didn’t seem rude. I think we are allowed to be angry, and try to use that anger constructively. I am a little angry with Siams dh, and don’t think I could live with someone like that. My own Nigel does seem to know I am fully human.

I don’t think they can really relate to us or understand the things we experience. I feel that men are socialised to have less empathy or maybe it’s inherent?

Jordan Peterson often says that less feeling of empathy found in men compared to women is inherant, according to work carried out by social scientists. If interested see from 25 mins onwards in the following...

Not, I guess, what feminists what to accept. Other social commentators are available.

want not what

Does the study take socialisation into account? If so, how? Boys are socialised differently from girls.

Does the study take socialisation into account? If so, how? Boys are socialised differently from girls.

The above vid is from Nov 2018. In it Peterson refers to a recent article from the journal Science from the week before ( around 24:30 ish). The article below might well be it. The authors claims they looked at data from 80,000 individuals from 76 counties - In an attempt, as JP says, to 'flatten out', cultural differences - thereby leaving biological differences (or that was the aspiration).

The article link is here

Feminists say that men are socialised to have less empathy, which leaves us hope that things can change and improve for both sexes.

Cultural differences are not the same as socialisation, which starts in early infancy. Socialisation is heavily ingrained, works on a below conscious level, and is extremely difficult to change. There isn't a way to study humans that can take it into account, because the hierarchy is cross cultural.

I’m with you OP.
TBH I’ve realised in the last five years (despite already being brought up as a ‘feminist’ and thought it was all ‘ok’ for ages) that my every thought and action and most people around me is conditioned by misogyny. I think I’ve made assumptions about other women, myself, and men all my life that are based on misogyny. God only
Knows the judgements that have been made on me.

My aims in life, my judgements on women and men around me. My aspirations for my children and myself. My unforgiving guilt on my own shortcomings (not a superwoman). all of them.

Girls become women in a toxic social environment that they learn to navigate as best they can.
Andrea Dworkin wrote a book called Right Wing Women about cutting the best deal you can with your oppressor.
Needless to say, no matter how sympathetic she was to them, she advocated unpacking our conditioning.
"I have to ask you to resist, not to comply, to destroy the power men have over women, to refuse to accept it, to abhor it and to do whatever is necessary despite its cost to you to change it.”
― Andrea Dworkin

Having a better understanding of feminism and the patriarchal society we live in has been fundamental in helping me understand disturbing patterns in my own life. Things which I have beaten myself up about I now see as not being totally in my control to do better as the system was stacked against my sex class. I don't mean I blame men for all my faults but I see how we all are constrained by society. So many times on mn (especially in Relationships but not only) I see women who could really do with some Feminism in their life!

I think if you open your eyes there are so many examples. Look at advertising, women’s bodies are used to sell anything from snack foods to deodorant. Objectification of women as essentially sex objects happens all our lives on TV, magazines, billboards to the extent that a lot of us self objectify and judge ourselves this same way.

There are so many examples of every day sexism I don’t see how any woman wouldn’t want to support feminism.

Socialisation is heavily ingrained, works on a below conscious level, and is extremely difficult to change.

In which case how can one hope that things can be changed, then?

Does the study take socialisation into account? If so, how? Boys are socialised differently from girls.

The idea with this study was that it included many different cultural contexts, with the idea that differences that were culturally conditioned would not dominate.

I think agreeableness was the only characteristic that was clearly different between the sexes across the board. (There may have been one other but less marked, I can't quite remember.)

There was some theory that this might be a feature of female personality as they were more likely to be very dependent on the social grouping to do well bearing and raising children. That's obviously speculation but seems to fit in with the tendency for women to be more sophisticated with language and social relations.

There isn't a way to study humans that can take it into account, because the hierarchy is cross cultural.

Anything cross cultural though has a strong possibility of being inherent, at least in some sense. Otherwise you'd expect variation.

Does the study take socialisation into account? If so, how? Boys are socialised differently from girls.

It seems to me that boys and girls are socialized the same. We are all taught from infancy what is expected of us and how we fit into the dominance/submission social hierarchy.
It is hardly possible for adults to insulate children from the training provided by the society they grow up in.

I agree with ByGrabstharsHammer
"To the posters who say they've never experienced misogyny - you're wrong. You might not be able to see it, but it's there."

Most cultures have been deeply shaped by the dictates of misogyny. Mainly through the domination of religion for centuries, developing into our current omnipotent legal & political institutions. We all know Eve was framed!

How anyone can live in this society that repeatedly allows such a relentless amount of travesties as Spycops, Shana Grice, Natalie Connelly, domestic violence, violent porn, prostitution, widespread child abuse (Rotherham/Oxford etc), FGM, honour killings, and piss poor rape convictions, and still claim not to recognise the deep rooted misogyny that allows it to happen is beyond me.

Greer said (Female Eunuch 1970)
'women have very little idea how much men hate them'. Perhaps as many have pointed out already it's better to stay ignorant of that fact.

So ingrained it can't be seen, Spartabix, yeah. Always thought the 'No More Page Three' campaign argued really well about the damage done through the routine objectification of young women in a daily newspaper. The 'harmless fun' of misogynistic men keeping voiceless women in their place was sadly only shifted out of the public sphere in 2015, just as the internet had really taken over as a news source but I was still really pleased to see the back of that particular brand of 'harmless' misogyny.
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Funny how feminist's are often branded as the man-haters isn't it 😒

sawdust The socialisation from birth of women to be submissive and patient and men to be aggressive is universal across cultures. Parents treat their newborns differently as soon as they find out the child's sex, it literally is socialisation from birth. In a culture where men hunt out of necessity and women gather, such conditioning is necessary. In a culture where adults work as baristas or carpenters or clerks, that conditioning is no longer necessary.

In any case, this is somewhat of a red herring. We are talking of misogyny--the hatred of women. Devaluing stereotypical female behaviours caused by conditioning, paying "women's work" jobs less than "men's work" jobs with no regard to the work's utility, etc, are all examples of the hatred of women manifesting as less respect and inferior treatment. The treatment of women as de facto chattel, the prevalence of rape, the rise of surrogacy, these are all examples of misogyny. Whether behavioural differences are innate or conditioned is irrelevant to a discussion about the proportion of women who recognise the existence of misogyny.